Two brainy bicycle makersโฆa remote North Carolina moonscapeโฆand an impossible dream. On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright took wing at Kitty Hawk and flewโas none before hadโunraveling a complex problem that had defied historyโs most inventive minds, from Leonard da Vinci to Edison. How did these high-school dropouts from Dayton, Ohio do it? Experts at the controls of full-scale replicas explain how they workedโor didnโtโand historians recount the brothersโ heated arguments.